Deputies: Roommate had ninja gear, explosives for 'end of days'

HOLIDAY — Edward Day was looking for his medication on Monday and couldn't find it in his dresser drawers. So he tried the drawer that belongs to his roommate, and was taken aback by what he found: a stockpile of "ninja gear" and possible pipe bombs, according to a Pasco County Sheriff's Office report.

Day called the Sheriff's Office. He told deputies that he and his roommate, Chad Sutton, 39, bought fireworks shortly before New Year's Eve. He said Sutton bought a 16-shot mortar, M-80s and bottle rockets.

Those explosives were rigged into four cardboard cylinders, each with the gunpowder of five M-80 fireworks, the sheriff's report states.

Day said Sutton told him "he had to prepare for the end of days, and by collecting ninja gear and constructing bombs, (Sutton) felt he would be able to protect the home," the report states.

When deputies interviewed Sutton, he told them he only built the bombs for a bigger, better fireworks explosion and planned to set them off in his yard.

"I made them for New Year's," he told deputies, according to the report. "I was going to set them off, but I was too drunk and forgot about them."

Sutton also told deputies his roommate was mad at him and had set him up by planting the explosives in his drawer, the report states.

Deputies arrested Sutton, of 3300 Huntington Drive, on a charge of possessing a destructive device. He remained in the Land O'Lakes jail Tuesday in lieu of $5,000 bail.